Variety's Actor-on-Actor: Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman.

I feel like Crowe was kind of uncomfortable when Kidman suggested they do a play together. I know he suggested Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (which is a great suggestion), but she wss super-hyped about the idea of acting on stage with him every night, and it sort of felt like he just wanted to quickly move on and keep talking about movies again.

Crowe hasn't done stage since the very early part of his career in Australia. Great actor, but I don't think he's wired to test himself on the boards at the highest level like Kidman.

Not really. Crowe praises theatre all the time, so he fully understands the prestige that comes with accomplished stage work. He's watched Kidman in her plays. I'm pretty sure he watches a lot of theatre.  So he respects it. But like a lot of primarily film actors, he's too lazy or risk-averse to conquer a harder medium for less money. Of the four most respected Australian actors today (they all got stamps in their honor and won Oscars....Kidman, Blanchett, Crowe and Geoffrey Rush) Crowe is the only one with no significant stage achievements, and maybe it has hurt him a bit. These days, both Kidman and Blanchett are a bigger deal than him. Doing stage (succesfully) would have kept his prestige level elevated and probably helped his standing in the film industry as well. If I had to decide who was the greatest male Australian actor today, it would be Rush, not Crowe. And Rush's stage pedigree would definitely give him a big advantage.

From Kate Winslet to Johnny Depp and Leonardo Di Caprio, film actors talk wistfully all the time about doing theatre, like it's some holy grail they will get round to one day when the time is right. Listening to Depp claim that he one day intends to play Hamlet in a theatre is laughable considering he's using earpieces on film sets just to remember his lines. Being a movie actor is just easier, with less risk attached. It's no shock that a lot of movie stars will talk about wanting to do theatre and their respect for it,instead of actually making the commitment. The prestige of stage work will always be their for Actors. Actors look at and talk about other actors differently when they know they are accomplished stage actors. That will never change.

If stage-work lacked prestige, you wouldn't get a slew of Hollywood actors every year trying their luck on Broadway or the West End, to try and elevate their reps as thespians. But for some of the bigger names who have maybe already won an Oscar, the risk may not be worth the  extra reward. Does Brad Pitt really need to do stage to be told he sucks at it, like they did to Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis? Probably not. Safer to stick to the film sets.

I'm not that bothered why DiCaprio (or other actors) chooses to do or not do stage to be honest. Whatever they want to tell themselves as a reason for not doing it is fully up to them.

Stage is harder, with less of a saftey net than film/TV. If DiCaprio does a stage play and the reviews for him aren't good, it damages his reputation as a "thespian". You will get a lot of people saying, "I told you, he was just a movie star. Camera loves him, but he hasn't got the chops on stage".

When you have as much reputation to risk as someone like Leo, why bother? He's got his Oscar.So I get it.